


the lines we shall cross

by griners



Series: The wounds we heal and the ones we do not [3]
Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: F/M, aka blacklist writers if you see this: make it happen, also next part will pick up canon aNNNND im very excited, and honestly who isnt happy she got ginger bread, i am now caught up witht the show and GOD IT BURNS, i hope with all my being that she keeps on getting ginger bread angst, it burns and it hurts and liz finally got that ginger bread, ok I'll leave you to read this now bYEEE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:49:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29804556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griners/pseuds/griners
Summary: She sees it play out in her head like a chess match – she will tell him a secret, he will grip her wrist and they will call the dinner short, share a cab because it is the only sensible thing to do, and in the end, he will stand with her at the door to her apartment with nothing to stop them then. Checkmate.
Relationships: Elizabeth Keen & Donald Ressler, Elizabeth Keen/Donald Ressler
Series: The wounds we heal and the ones we do not [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148087
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	the lines we shall cross

**Author's Note:**

> so. so. so, i watched 7x17, 8x01, 8x02, 8x03 and 8x04 in the span of two days and I think it's fair to say I am ruined for all other ships. I mean it, all other ships. I now also have plans to wrap up the last part with canon and am too excited for my own good to get started on that.  
> oK so keenler for life and life for keenler, hope you like!

She comes back on a Wednesday afternoon, and everything is a colorful blur since then. She doesn’t quite meet their eye at first, no longer used to their daily presence and the intensity of the job, no longer used to escaping death every few days because she herself has been living in death - for months now, death is all she has known, and she takes her time wrapping her head around their running from it. How Aram has been training with fire arms and how Ressler still doesn’t miss his 8 o’clock gym appointment and how Samar sharpens her knife at the end of every week. How Cooper drinks his ever-present bottle of scotch to let go of all the close calls they encountered today. How her desk still has her name on it, even after all this time.

She comes back on a Wednesday afternoon to find the people that killed her husband, but by night, she finds the people she calls family. Even if she hasn’t realized it yet.

.

They are out celebrating her birthday at Wing Yee after a long day with even longer drinks. She finally understands how one uses 17 muscles to produce a simple smile because all of them are sore on her bright, bright face, even brighter under the fluorescent lights and the glittering eyes of everyone she could ever need. She sits beside Aram and Samar, who are busy trying to dissect chinese rolls and inspect their contents (“ _You see, Samar, this is why you never trust them when they tell you it’s just the usual vegetables - do you really want to put cauli flower in your mouth? Didn’t think so_.”), and Cooper and Ressler sit on the other side of her arguing over who is going to win the match that’s been playing out for the last 20 minutes on tv. Her eyes shine as they pass over them and rest on Ressler and his relaxed shoulders, wide grin, calm features. She pauses for a moment and wishes she could pause longer, but reality never really stops moving.

“You want a refill?” he asks suddenly, snapping her out of her sappy _this is my family and I couldn’t ask for better_ realization. “We still have two bottles left.” He adds with a wink, as if she needed any more incentive.

“Fill away.” She laughs as she extends her glass, half considering how they are ever going to get their cars out of this place if they are all past the drinking limit and the clock has barely grazed 9 o’clock. Ressler seems to have it all figured out, though, filling up her glass and everyone’s at the table, and so, she decides, _it is what it is._ Taxis exist for a reason.

“Don’t go getting tipsy on me now, Keen,” he jokes as he brings the glass to his lips, eyes locking onto hers. “I might just have to take advantage of it.”

Her heart skips a beat, quietly, minutely, and she quickly scans the rest of the team to find them entertained in conversation. The scan isn’t lost on him, and his lips quirk up even as he downs the remains of his wine. She leans forward, led on by the warmness in her stomach and the numbness in her fingers, and smiles a secret smile. “And how are you planning on doing that?”

She doesn’t mean it to come out as playful as it does, but it does and it’s out and there’s nothing she can do about it now, and it’s a choice not to regret it- a choice she takes, and takes, and takes. His face is more surprised than he would probably have liked to show, but he recovers quickly, grins at her, sets down his glass. “Well…” he drawls, smile widening. He looks up at her again. “I can try and drain all those secrets out of you.”

“I seem to remember telling you _all_ my secrets not long ago.” She reminds him pointedly, turning her eyes quickly towards Cooper and back as if to say _not this, not here, ginger boy_. “I’m not sure what else I could have to offer.”

The lingering _Reddington isn’t Reddington but I don’t care anymore_ embraces them with a deep routed sense of calm in a world as crazy as theirs. None of them speak on how, now that the dust is settled and everything seems on the right track, Liz has more than relied on him for a case, or for secrets – they now make it a habit to order food to the office as they finish up ungodly amounts of paperwork every other day, spending their nights in the company of each other and various slices of pizza. They have also been touching more, she notes as their current proximity registers in her brain – how Ressler has his arm leaning against the back of her chair and their knees are touching at an odd angle, as if both are reluctant to pull away and neither wants to admit enough to pull closer.

He says something she can’t quite understand, either from the alcohol humming softly in her bones or her distracted gaze that keeps flickering to his lips and back (she has a feeling this might go south faster than intended), but she shakes herself out of the trance and asks him to repeat himself with a sheepish smile.

“I said-“ he starts, eyes wide and expressive, mischievous. “Tell me something you would only tell me now.”

“You have sauce on your chin.”

He laughs abruptly, quickly grabbing the napkin and wiping at the two days old stubble that lazy weekends always provided him with. “I don’t mean now at Wing Yee. I mean now as in, you’re drunk. Spill something out that you wouldn’t, you know” he sets the napkin down, turns fully towards her. “If you weren’t.”

Her smile opens slowly, almost defiantly, muscle after muscle pulling at the strings of her heart. Or face. Or both. “You’re sure?”

“Definitely.” He says, and this might be a game, but the plays are much too predictable for their own good. He isn’t fooling her and she isn’t fooling him. _I could have asked Samar for help with the body in my trunk_ and _sometimes I touch you and I don’t want to stop_ and _sometimes when you touch me, I wonder if you feel it too. This. Is it all in my head?_ But she knows it isn’t, hasn’t been, won’t be. Knows deep down every time he guides her with a hand on the small of her back or stands close enough to feel his breath on the back of her neck, it’s never been an accident. It’s never been innocent. No matter how hard they (might have, probably) tried.

She sees it play out in her head like a chess match – she will tell him a secret, he will grip her wrist and they will call the dinner short, share a cab because it is the only sensible thing to do, and in the end, he will stand with her at the door to her apartment with nothing to stop them then. Nothing. Checkmate.

Her smile falters at this. She thinks of his beautiful face and how precious this is, he is. Thinks of how terrified she feels when he takes longer than 2 seconds to answer back on their intercoms and how livid she goes when she hears gunshots through the phone. Thinks of how this is special enough for her to save to herself in hopes to keep it protected, hidden, this, whatever this is, whatever they have always been. The alcohol in her system twists and turns now and she thinks, _god. I don’t want to do anything to lose you._

“Allison.” She replies, and hands him her glass in desperation for a refill. His face is guarded as he obliges, cautious with what’s coming out of her mouth in place of what should have been. She pretends to overlook the disappointment etched in the arch of his brow and the curve of his lips. “If you ever need to hunt me down again,” she adds, inspiring his amusement, a bubble of happiness rising to crush the frustration. “My top alias is Allison. She’s a mechanical engineer with a squeaky-clean record. My main gal,” she laughs now, and he chuckles alongside her, clinking their glasses together in a toast to all the secrets they end up leaving a secret.

“Allison, huh?” he says back, eyeing her suspiciously. “Always took you for more of a Caroline.”

“That is exactly why she’s Allison. Harder to find.” She smiles, and Ressler thinks _yes. Yes, you are._

Allison is a name he doesn’t plan on remembering, and yet, regrettably, he does. But that’s for the future.

.

Liz can’t say she’s surprised he came to her, and Ressler can’t say he’s surprised she’s expecting him. There is a loud buzz in the background of this scene, this conversation, this explosion of wills that has never gotten them far until now. Now, maybe too far.

“Liz, I _need_ ,” he all but begs, his plead painfully breathless. “I need to know. Why?”

( _I need to know, so please tell me. I need to know, so please confess, once and for all._ )

She looks at him like she hears him. He needs to know and she needs to be silent, to wait this out, to hopefully and magically transform this into something lighter than it is, into a friend doing something for another friend and owing them for life – not Elizabeth doing this for Don for the sheer purpose of not losing him. Not him. Never him.

“You were in trouble,” she starts, but he’s not having it. He came tonight for one reason – he wants to push the door open, finally, completely, wants to break the damn thing for all he cares. The door that they have always left half open, half closed is dangerously near to falling off its own hinges and Don seems in no rush to hold it together – his words are the axe that will crumble this into pieces. She clings desperately to the _reasons_ , explains how everything else in her life is unstable but he isn’t, he is her _friend_ , but it’s ridiculous even as it leaves her lips, ridiculous because it’s the truth and yet so far away from it. She loses sight of her goal halfway through her rant and when she looks up, she knows it’s far too late to turn back now.

His eyes burn intensely as she tells him how much he means to her in words and actions, and if ever there was doubt, there is none here. He steps forward and holds her for her benefit and for his, and this is where the tracks end. This is the end of the line. Cross it, and they are lost, _cross it_ , he thinks, she thinks, and maybe they find something again. His right hand rests in her hair and his left hand at her waist, her hands cling to his torso and her breath whispers on the nape of his neck. Time stands still for a second or ten, one hour or two – they’re not sure how long they stand there before Don pulls back, slowly, half dealing with a bomb and half dealing with a deadly virus. He is careful and slow as he tilts his head back to look into her eyes, and god, the line, the _line-_

She is going to speak, she decides, to say _no no no no_ , but his lips are fanning her lips now and she has mostly lost the ability to form words. His hand at her waist comes to rest on her cheek and angles her head up so that she never stops looking at him, and then, gently, languidly, he lowers his lips.

He kisses the right corner of her mouth, and then, slower even, the left. He lingers there for a second before he exhales tortuously, lets go of her cheek, her face, and steps back all together.

“What-“ she doesn’t finish, startled and confused and immersed in disappointment she never thought could burn so. His face is all she needs to look at, though, to understand. To see.

“When you’re ready, Liz,” he croaks, immobile during his own goodbye. “I’ll be here.”

She doesn’t move for an hour after he leaves. Lines are overrated, she finds, at the end.


End file.
